Rep. Allen West: I’m The Modern-Day Harriet Tubman Leading Blacks From The Plantation Of Democrats

Fox News continued harping on its “blacks are unhappy with Obama” propaganda (and never mind the 80+% approval rating) with an interview on The O’Reilly factor with Republican Congressman Allen West last night (8/17/11). Since African Americans vote overwhelmingly Democratic, you have to wonder why Fox didn’t bring on an actual disenchanted-with-Obama black voter, rather than the seriously unhinged, Democrat-hating West. Predictably, West used the occasion not to offer any serious analysis or solutions for problems in the black community but to use inflammatory soundbites to attack black Democrats and President Obama. And in a jaw-dropping moment, he proclaimed himself “the modern-day Harriet Tubman” ready to lead blacks to the “freedom” of Republicans. Good luck with that!

Ordinarily on Fox, President Obama is demonized as doing too much for black Americans. No Fox viewer worth his salt doubts who Obama wants to “redistribute the wealth” to. We all remember that Glenn Beck thinks Obama's a racist with a “deep-seated hatred” of white people. And who can forget that Fox has reported that Obama's African American Attorney General Eric Holder would rather allow white voters to be intimidated by black hooligans than to prosecute them. But now that the 2012 election is getting into gear, Fox has developed a sudden concern Obama's not doing enough for the black electorate.

Ingraham began by playing a clip of Rep. Maxine Waters urging black voters to “unleash us” on President Obama. It’s worth noting I heard the same clip of Waters repeated on Hannity and On The Record. Fox's newfound interest in the mainstream black community’s feelings was quite striking. “What’s really going on here with the new kind of storyline that African Americans are growing unhappy with President Obama?” Ingraham asked.

Of course, as Ingraham admitted the night before, Obama still has more than an 80% approval rating among African Americans. An article on FoxNews.com yesterday puts it at 86%. Only on Fox News would this be presented as a major problem. Fox may also be the only network more interested in the “problem” of Obama’s political support as opposed to the problems of everyday black folks.

West, too, showed more interest in the politics than in the struggles of African Americans. He said,

The laughable hypocrisy is that (Obama’s) big, black bus is not going into the black community… You have this 21st Century plantation that has been out there where the Democrat party has forever taken the black vote for granted. And you have established certain black leaders who are nothing more than the overseers of that plantation and now the people on that plantation are upset because they’ve been disregarded, disrespected and their concerns are not cared about. So I’m here as the modern-day Harriet Tubman to kind of lead people on the underground railroad away from that plantation into a sense of sensibility.

Even Laura Ingraham seemed a bit incredulous – but not disapproving - as she asked, “So you’re saying Maxine Waters is the plantation boss at this point?”

“Absolutely,” West assured her. “I’m going to be brutally honest, is that white liberals have turned over to certain leaders, quote, unquote perceived leaders in the black community like a Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or Maxine Waters or Barbara Lee and said, you know, ‘Pacify and keep the black community firmly behind us, regardless of the failures of our social welfare policies.’”

But rather than challenge any of West’s outrageous rhetoric or focus on her “concern” for black problems, Ingraham jumped on the attack bandwagon. Citing flash mobs, she asked, “Where the heck is Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters on the flash mob? Where are they on those?

“That’s my point,” West said. He went on to acknowledge that “The Republican party has not done very well in reaching out” to African Americans and “that’s where we have an opportunity to show that the conservative principles and values that really are the cornerstone and bedrock of the black community.”

If West is really interested in reaching out to African American Democrats, he might want to reconsider his tactics. In a scathing piece on the Washington Post blog, African American columnist Jonathan Capeheart wrote:

If West wants to show black voters there is an alternative to the Democratic Party, he can start by laying off the slave nonsense. It bespeaks a condescending attitude from the GOP to which African Americans are quite accustomed.